204 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



thrushes which so often bear them company, showing 

 foxy-red sides and a white streak above the eye, are 

 Redwings which, like the fieldfare, have exchanged 

 the long sunny nights of the northern summer for our 

 murky winter, still, in spite of its drawbacks, more 

 kindly than their own. Under the beeches Chaffinches 

 peck at the kernels of the fallen " mast." A harsher 

 note, " kek, kek," tells that there are other finches with 

 them, and with the binoculars one soon picks out the 

 orange shoulder-patches, buff breast and white rump 

 of a cock Br ambling. Further examination shows 

 that the northerners form no small proportion of the 

 flock, and this is always the case when there is a heavy 

 fall of beech-mast, though we see few bramblings in the 

 alternate years when the beeches do not fruit. 

 - In the third week of the month the Hooded Crows 

 begin to arrive on the East Coast, coming in in small 

 parties with easy and leisurely flight. Called "grey 

 crows" from their ash-coloured mantles, they are 

 familiar enough all through the winter upon rocky 

 shores where they feed upon shell-fish at low tide. Less 

 numerous inland, they there prefer the neighbourhood 

 of kennels or the mud-flats of tidal rivers and are always 

 ready to pounce upon a wounded bird which has 

 escaped the gunner. 



It is not every winter that we shall see a bird whose 

 plumage of white, black and pearl-grey suggests at first 

 view a small magpie, but whose lively movements 



